End of Ends

Joyce Lu was dreaming. Her dream played a scene she thought she had completely forgotten.

On a street by the school, the sun was shining brightly. While a tree provided her with shade, she didn't feel any better. It just made her feel stuffy.

By noon, the sun was directly overhead, scorching the pavement. Two lone figures stood under the tree. One was Joyce herself, and the other was the mother of Braydon Huo, her boyfriend.

The lady pursed her lips disdainfully.

"Joyce, I can give you three million to help the Lu family get out of their current predicament. However, there's one condition: l want you to leave my son." The lady waved a check wedged between her two manicured fingers in front of Joyce's face. "Break up with him," she said in a low voice, carefully enunciating each word.

Perhaps it was because the sun was dazzlingly bright that Joyce's eyes stung. But she smiled at the lady sweetly. "No, Aunt. I love Braydon. I'm not in it for the money."

"Love?"

The lady scoffed. Such sentiment was useless.

"Let me put it this way. What's more important, the Lu family's future or your love?"

Her biting words made all the color drain from Joyce's face. The lady smiled at her condescendingly and gently touched her hair. "Your parents have been good to you ever since you were a child. Doesn't that mean anything to you?

Let me make this easy for you. You can protect your parents' lifetime efforts by abandoning a dispensable relationship. This deal is actually worth it."

Joyce wanted to refute her words, but in that moment, she felt as though her throat was choked with cotton.